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Mthabisi Tshuma, Showbiz Reporter
AFTER six years without releasing an album, urban grooves duo, Extra Large, is set to announce their presence with a 10-track album titled Abnormal Load.

The duo of Jimmy Mangezi and Norman Manwere, whose last album, The Truth was released in 2016, is expected to quench the thirst of their fans with the new album.

It has tracks Maonde, Anodyiwa Haataure, Makandidzidzisa kuCheater, Unondityei, Tekenye, Zino Irema, Blue Ticks, Chihwiriri, Maskodobo and Yolo.

The album is set to be released on 30 June and will be available on digital platforms that include iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, YouTube, Gateway Stream and Apple Music.

Mangezi said Abnormal Load, their 12th album, will take people down memory lane.

“Basically the album is about our journey, the sound that came with the Urban Grooves movement and the revival of the genre that gave birth and paved way for the urban sound in Zimbabwe.

This is why we decided to name it Abnormal Load because we feel it’s overloaded with so much of that diversity,” Mangezi said.

He said the album features established artistes, some from the Urban Grooves era who include Roki, Maskiri, Jah Prayzah, ExQ, Shashl, BaShupi and Nembo.

“It also has international features from Burkina Faso and South Africa.

We’ve done tracks with a producer from Burkina Faso called Doctore and we featured a very talented artiste from there called Djozi.

The same track features our very own talented Jeldous and it’s titled Maonde.”

Interestingly, Mangezi said their genre is Afro-pop although it fell under Urban Grooves during that era.

“Our genre has always been Afro-pop, but it was under Urban Grooves just like any other urban sound that came up with that movement.

Our fans like to refer to us as Urban Groovers, which is fine.”

He said their delay in releasing fully-fledged albums was due to the fact that the markets had been flooded.

“We last released an album about six years ago which had tracks like Muti Wemusango but since then, we’ve been releasing singles.

We went on a low in terms of releasing albums because we felt the market was flooded.

“A lot of up-and-coming artistes were coming up hence radio and all media platforms were not doing justice to bulk content from single artistes meaning if you released an album, you’d find that radio would most probably just focus on one track, maybe to give room to other different types of genres and artistes,” he said.

During that period, the talented duo churned out singles that include Papi Pacho featuring BaShupi and Stunner, Huya Undichukuchire featuring Roki, Murudo featuring Nox, Kede Kede featuring Andy Muridzo and Mhepo featuring MacDee. – @mthabisi_mthire